Teaching Forgiveness Isn't Easy
by Lupe.Farron
Summary: Emily is forced to go undercover in a high school to draw out an unsub. Sounds easy right? But when something is said that causes her to retreat into her shell, who can coax her back out of it? Established H/P. One-shot.


**HAPPY BIRTHDAY ****charlotteprentiss****!**

**So, it's another Hotly. What the hell am I doing? *sighs* Well, this is the product of a bunch of prompts given to me before Christmas by ****charlotteprentiss****, but I never got around to doing it – so it's part of your birthday present! Have a great day!**

**Prompts:**

Undercover

High School

Derek Morgan

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><p><strong>Note: <strong>Established Hotch/Emily.

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><p><strong>I own nothing. If I owned Criminal Minds, trust me, you'd know about it.<strong>

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><p><strong>Teaching Forgiveness Isn't Easy<strong>

"_Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts." – __**Author Unknown.**_

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><p>"So...remind me again of why I'm filling in for a <em>maths <em>teacher?" Emily grumbled.

"Because you fit the unsub's type. It wouldn't be practical or helpful if one of us did it, the unsub wouldn't-"

"I didn't really need an answer Reid," the brunette told him gently.

"Oh..."

A low whistle came from behind the two profilers. "Damn Princess, if my maths teacher dressed like that, I might have actually paid attention in class," Morgan grinned at her.

Emily glared at him.

"You wouldn't have paid attention even then, you'd have been too busy trying to get her number," she snapped at him.

"Easy Prentiss, I was joking," he smiled, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Speaking of getting numbers, do you fancy going for a drink when we get home?"

"Pffft, what's the catch? Am I buying?" Emily grinned at him.

"Of course you are. You're teacher, I'm a little underage to be being alcohol Ma'am," he drawled at her.

"Ew! Morgan. Give it up. Right now. I hate these clothes," Emily moaned.

"At least it's better than this get up," Derek complained, gesturing to his own janitor's uniform.

"You're lucky Garcia isn't here," JJ said from behind him, entering the office. "She wants pictures."

"Over my dead body," Prentiss grumbled, wincing as the blonde profiler flinched at her words. "So, run this by me again?" She looked at Reid expectantly.

"Well, we know our unsub works with the catering company who deliver the food stock to the cafeteria here, and the one at Madison Bennett's hotel and Emma Collins' office building. The earlier victims, Louise and Sasha, were test subjects, our unsub was finding his style. It's quite interesting how quickly he picked up a new technique, it makes us wonder if there's more victims out there that we haven't found yet, look at the gap before his escalation – I'm rambling aren't I? Sorry. Going back to this, you need to enter the cafeteria when the delivery is being made, our unsub will probably engage you in conversation..."

"So, I've got to talk to the guy and make sure it's him before Morgan makes the arrest?" Emily clarified.

"Yes, pretty much. You don't want to be too engaging though, our unsub will probably be either ignored or rejected by most women, which is probably part of the trigger for his anger. He'll likely approach you again later on, maybe hang back after class, we won't actually know it's our unsub until then," Reid explained to her.

"Okay..." Emily thought for a moment. "So what time's the delivery?"

"Eleven forty-five, just before morning break starts, so you don't have to leave the class until-" JJ interjected.

"Wait, what?" the brunette yelped. "I've actually got to _teach _a class?"

"You've got to fill in as a supply teach all day," Reid said to her as if it were obvious.

"Just think of it as taming a pack of wild dogs," Rossi smiled toothily at her.

"Thanks Dave," she deadpanned.

"Not a problem," he winked back.

A bell rang throughout the hallway outside the office the team had been able to occupy. A rumble of noise followed it as the rabble of students trying to get to their classes surged past, something that caused Emily to pale slightly.

"What is it you usually say at a time like this?" Morgan shot a quick grin at Reid as he said the words to Emily. The female profiler looked up at him confusion.

Reid put on his best impression of Emily and sighed heavily. "Urgh...this is _really _gonna suck."

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><p>"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Hotch asked her.<p>

"I'm _fine_ Aaron."

"I don't know if I'm okay with the idea of you engaging with the unsub unarmed," the older man confessed. Hotch had quickly pulled her aside before she left to head to her class. Since the incident with Doyle, and most definitely since the brunette had accepted his offer to be his...not girlfriend...or lover...whatever it was, ever since Emily and himself had become an item, he had been very reluctant to allow her to be in any form or danger.

"Well I can't take a gun into a class full of kids, can I?" she playfully glared at him.

Hotch sighed and nodded. "We'll be listening the whole time," he promised.

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Emily smiled. The other profiler quickly pressed a kiss onto her lips, pulling back to see her smirking at him. "What happened to being professional?"

"You're not a profiler now, you're a teacher who's being wished good luck on her first day of teaching by her boyfriend," he grinned at her. Emily arched an eyebrow. "Okay, I'm sorry."

Emily rolled her eyes and pecked him on the cheek. "Don't be," she breathed into his ear, sending a shiver down the man's spine.

"Be safe," he told her firmly.

"I will...Sir."

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><p>"Miss!"<p>

Emily grimanced at the term and turned back to face the class. "What is it...err...?"

"Rob," the boy leaning back on his chair told her with a grin.

"Rob...right. What is it Rob?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

Emily stared at him. As much as the class in front of her probably didn't believe it, she was a teenager once and had a fairly good idea of how schools worked. "Does your usual teacher let you go to the bathroom during class?" she smirked at him.

"Oh yeah, allllll the time," Rob drawled.

"Really?" Emily nodded sarcastically. "Well, I'm sure your other teacher is fully aware of the bladder problem you must have, this is what, the third time in the last hour and a half you've needed to go?"

A rumble of laughter echoed through the class and Emily fought back the grin at the prospect of the class actually warming up to her.

"I'm just messing with you Rob, come here and I'll write you a hall pass, but this is the last one, okay? I don't mind having a laugh, but don't take the mick," she warned him, a streak of humour lacing her tone. As the boy grabbed the pass he chuckled.

"You're alright Miss Hegan, you're alright."

From the corner of her eye, the brunette saw other members of the class nod their agreement and her grin widened slightly. When Rob had left, Emily flicked back through the textbook and groaned internally.

"So your regular teacher left a message saying you guys were practicing for your test next week, right?" she asked the remaining students.

A murmur of agreement met her ears.

"Alright then. So...let's check this list...we just went through graphs, calculations...algebra it is then..."

The class groaned loudly and Emily herself could hardly blame them. She continued to read through the textbook, write on the board and occasionally help the students when they asked for it. It was dull and she knew it, but teaching the kids, though she felt guilty over it, was not her main priority. As eleven-forty-five crept closer, her mind became more focused on the real reason she was there.

"Alright, so after break we can-"

The bell interrupted her. Emily simply rolled her eyes. "You guys can go. See you after break."

As the class surged from the room, the brunette walked down to the cafeteria, noted that Morgan was performing his janitor's duties near the door and went straight into the kitchen. When she walked through the door, two men at the rear of it hauling heavy boxes looked up simultaneously.

"Hi," she said a little nervously. "Um...is Caroline here?"

The two men just gawked at her.

"I'm here Sweetie! Hold on a sec!" a voice shouted from outside. Caroline, whom had been introduced to the team earlier and had agreed to help them, came into the kitchen and smiled at Emily. "What can I do for you hun?"

"I've got a meeting in Mr Fitcher's office at three with a group of students studying for their math exam...I was wondering if you would be able to send up some sandwiches or something for them as they're revising, if that's okay?" The story was rehearsed and easy to follow. She'd given the unsub a location, a time and she'd completely ignored the two men since Caroline had entered the kitchen.

"I'm not sure..." the cook said, looking round. "I don't know if we have the extra stock to-"

"Oh! Don't worry about that!" One of the men came over. He was unshaven, had a toothy grin and Emily fought the urge to cringe as his eyes trailed over her figure. This had to be their guy. "We can let you guys have an extra box and just add it to your next bill."

"Yeah!" The _other _delivery guy came over, shooting a flirtatious smile at her. "We can do that, it's not a problem."

_Dammit! Which one is it?_

"Right, thanks," Emily said in a rushed tone, knowing that her lack of interest in whichever of the two was their unsub would be enough to put her on his hit list. "Caroline, thank-you," she added sincerely. "I know how much of an inconvenience this must be."

"Oh! Don't you worry about it darlin', I'll have it sorted."

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><p>"Crap!"<p>

Emily whirled around at the shout. The last few hours had dragged, with both herself and the class loosing the will to live with the amount of math work they were being put through. She glanced at the clock and saw that she still had an hour and a half of teaching left to get through.

The boy whom had shouted sat at the back of the class, now staring at her in shock.

"What?" she asked him.

When the boy didn't answer, the girl in the seat next to him rolled her eyes and called out. "He yelled because he tried to hit you with that paper plane but he missed," she said.

"Snitch," the boy grumbled at her.

The girl just stuck her tongue out in reply.

"Really?" Emily said again in a sarcastic tone. She moved in front of her desk and picked up the offending paper model. The brunette unfolded it with the intention of throwing it in the bin when she was struck by an idea. "Emma," she said to a girl at the front. "Will you do me a favour and hand everyone three sheets of plain paper? Thank-you." As the girl moved to do as she was asked, Emily turned back to the rest of the class. "You can put everything away apart from a pen and a piece of scrap paper." She felt somewhat satisfied in the puzzled looks they gave her.

As the class followed her instructions, the profiler copied out the plan of the paper aeroplane onto the board, showing where it would be folded by drawing dotted lines.

"Okay, so the next part that you guys need to revise is angles. Since it's near the end of the day, I thought we'd have a little fun with this. You've got three pieces of paper each. I want each of you to construct three paper planes, each with the wings folded at different angles. Then, we'll stop twenty minutes before the end and we will see whose plane flies the furthest. If anyone asks, this is an exercise in measuring and identifying acute and obtuse angles, okay?" She looked around as grins began to spread across the faces of the class. "Oh, and I forgot to mention, whoever created the plane that flies the further, will win five dollars." The class rushed after that, hurrying to complete their planes.

The rest of the school day flew by after that.

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><p>"Paper planes to measure angles? Really?" JJ sniggered as Emily entered Mr Fincher's office where the team had been listening into the conversations all day and keeping tabs on the catering company, trying to figure out which of the two was their unsub.<p>

"I got bored," the brunette replied irritably.

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><p>Morgan slung his janitor's uniform back into the locker and began to place the items he had borrowed back into the closet in which they belonged. It had been a long day, but luckily he had not had many janitor's jobs to actually do.<p>

As the profiler shrugged back on his t-shirt, he heard the back door creak open. He hid behind the lockers quickly and watched from the corner of his eye as the second delivery guy crept in. Morgan slinked behind their unsub and tackled him to the ground.

A sharp pain in his shoulder made him realise that the man had a gun in his hand and was now hitting him repeatedly with the butt of it. The two men grappled for the weapon, tossing and thrashing on the floor. Snarls filled the air and did frequent grunts of frustration and pain.

Two shots rang out.

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><p>The team looked at each other. They had all heard the gunshots. In a split second, they had all received their orders from Hotch ("Emily – find Morgan, JJ you're with me, Rossi, Reid you two check the front entrance, no one leaves this building.") and were on their way. They were unsure where the shots had come from, so each proceeded with caution.<p>

Emily entered the janitor's basement and slowly descended the stairs, gun drawn, just in case. "Morgan?" She hit the floor and crept slowly around the lockers and water cylinders. "Derek?" No answer. Forcing down the panic that was beginning to swell in her gut, the brunette checked every corner with her gun before turning to see a small pool of blood seeping out from behind the last row of lockers before the back door. _Oh god, please no _she began to repeat in her head, furiously blinking away tears before they could fall. Swallowing quickly and preparing herself for the worst, Emily advanced towards the blood and appeared around the corner ready to shoot.

"Emily! Emily! It's me!" Morgan shouted before she could pull the trigger. The gun was still in his hand and the body of their unsub lay unmoving on the floor, blood soaked through his shirt. Next to his left hand lay a long knife. "Son of a bitch lunged for me with it, I had no choice," he told her.

"Derek..." she breathed, lowering her gun. "I..." She grew angry. "Why didn't you answer? I was _shouting _you!"

Morgan merely shrugged. "I guess I didn't hear you over the pipes hissing."

"Morgan..." her voice broke slightly. "When I saw the blood I...I...Dammit Derek, I thought you were dead."

"Now you know how what it feels like."

Emily froze. "What?"

Morgan looked at her in shock. He had spoken before he had even realised what he was saying. He hadn't meant to take such a dig at Emily, and now he instantly felt guilty at the crushed expression on the woman's face. "Emily, I'm sor-"

"No!" she cut him off. Derek watched as she compartmentalised the hurt she felt in mere seconds. "Don't apologise. It's okay, I...I'll see you back at the depot." Emily turned at walked out the room before Morgan could say another word.

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><p>Emily was unusually quiet on the plane on the way back to Quantico. And it wasn't just Hotch who noticed it, the rest of them had too, each shooting concerned glances towards the brunette. Both Morgan and JJ tried talking to her, only to be met with short answers.<p>

"Come on," Hotch tugged her waist slightly. Emily snapped out of her daydream and realised they had landed; everyone else had already left the plane. "I've given the team a long weekend off. And they don't have to be in until ten on Tuesday," he explained to her. The brunette merely nodded and offered a small smile in return.

The ride home was silent, Emily lost in her compartments, Hotch unsure what to say. This wasn't how he was expecting to spend the evening, but really, he wasn't sure what he was expecting at all. Jack was at Jessica's, as was the norm when they were away so long on a case. The profiler was looking forward to picking up his son tomorrow, and he was looking forward to Jack not only greeting him with a smile and a hug, but Emily too. A slight smile tugged at his lips as he remembered the look of delight on Jack's face when they first told him that Emily was going to be moving in with them. He adored the other woman and Emily loved him equally.

"What are you thinking about?" Emily asked quietly, looking at him questioningly.

"You. And Jack," he replied.

Emily smiled quickly. "We should do something tomorrow," she suggested. "Take him to the cinema and then out for dinner or something."

"I'd like that," Hotch agreed as they pulled into the driveway.

He cut the engine and looked at her expectantly. "What's wrong?" he asked her in a calm voice.

"I don't want to talk about it," she answered quietly.

"Okay," Hotch nodded. "But when you want to, I'm here for you."

Emily sighed and laughed in spite of herself. What Hotch just did was exactly part of the reason she had fallen for him. They knew each other's boundaries, when they needed to be pushed and when they needed to be left alone, they just..._understood _each other. Whenever she had been asked to explain it she just...couldn't. All Emily understood was that she loved Aaron Hotchner, and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.

The two profilers grabbed their go bags and went inside. Emily told Hotch she was heading to the bathroom and left before he answered. The man sighed and busied himself with emptying their go-bags, sorting out Jack's room, checking the refrigerator and deciding that they would have to order take-out tonight, before slowly heading upstairs.

He wasn't sure what he was going to find upstairs, and part of him was screaming to leave Emily be but his heart almost ripped out of his chest when he heard her sobs over the sound of the shower. It took him no time at all to shed his jacket and appear behind her, letting the hot water soak through his clothes, letting his arms encircle her protectively and laying a soft kiss to the crown of her head as she cried. The brunette turned and clung to him, crying into his shoulder until she couldn't anymore.

"I'm sorry," she eventually whispered. "I think your clothes are ruined."

Hotch reached behind her to shut off the shower. "It doesn't matter," he assured her. The two climbed out of the shower and Hotch handed her a towel, something she accepted silently. He left to grab some old sweat pants and a shirt before swapping places, leaving her to get dressed in the bedroom whilst he showered properly and got dressed in the bathroom.

When he was done, Hotch went back into the bedroom to see that Emily wasn't there. Sighing, he quickly tided things away and headed back downstairs and straight out into the night air. The brunette woman was sat on one of the loungers they kept out back, with her yoga pants and top on, her knees pulled up to her chest and staring at the starry sky. Hotch winced as Emily quickly looked at him and wiped away the few tears that lingered on her cheeks.

"I thought Morgan was dead today," she told him. The other profiler simply walked up to her, letting her continue. "And...he said now I know what it felt like." Hotch couldn't stop his fists clenching at the surge of anger he felt, something Emily didn't miss. "It's okay, he was right. I do know now," she sniffed. The brunette stood up and let Hotch's hands tug her waist until her hands were laid flat on his chest. "I still feel so guilty..."

"It wasn't your fault," Hotch told her firmly.

"If I had told you all about Doyle I-"

"No," Hotch cut her off. "You kept us all out of danger by not telling us about Doyle. As for leaving you in Paris, that was my decision, not yours."

"I know...I just feel...I don't know how to feel," she confessed to him. Emily's hands wandered over his chest again, running shivers up his spine.

Hotch's hands played with the hem of Emily's tank top, his thumbs circling her hips. Instead of replying verbally, he pulled the other profiler into a searing kiss, keeping her steady as she shook. When he pulled back, he looked into her eyes searchingly, wanting to make sure he was doing the right thing. When he saw the pleading look she gazed at him with, he kissed her deeply again, pressing their foreheads together and whispering against her lips.

"I can help with that."

He pulled her flush against him and swallowed the gasp that escaped her lips. He moved to her neck, placing open-mouthed kisses down her throat, eventually nipping gently on the erogenous pulse point, causing her knees to buckle.

"Bedroom," she breathed into his ear.

Aaron scooped her up into his arms, making a silent promise to let her stay there as long as she needed to.

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><p>Emily was content.<p>

She lay on her side staring at Hotch, her own emotions of love and concern mirrored in his eyes. As he reached over to push a piece of hair that had fallen in front of her face behind her ear, she turned her head and pressed a gentle kiss to his palm.

"I love you," she hummed against it.

He placed his hand on her neck, cradling her face. "I love you too," he told her honestly.

"Thank-you."

"Any time," he promised her.

As the other profiler closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, Emily crept out of bed and shrugged on one of Hotch's larger t-shirts to cover herself. She padded downstairs and grabbed her phone off the table where it had been charging. After a few minutes consideration, she opened the messages and began to type.

_Morgan, Hotch and I are taking Jack out for the day tomorrow, but do you fancy meeting up for a drink on Sunday evening?_

She only had to wait one minute for the reply.

_Only if you let me buy, Princess._

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><p>"<em>Life is an adventure in forgiveness." – <em>_**Norman Cousins**_

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><p><strong>*ducks rotten fruit*<strong>

**Don't hate me! I know Morgan might not always be the bad guy, but come on, they made up didn't they? :P**

**Please R&R, I know it's a little OOC, but I'm still trying to get my head around the entire Hotly concept ;)**


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